John Mantooth’s story, Litany, appears in the Spring 2006 issue of Shimmer. Send him e-mail!
Questions about the story:
Where did the idea for Litany come from?
From driving a school bus and realizing how much would be lost if I made a mistake.
How did the story change as you developed it?
It took awhile for me to get the point of view right. I went from straight first person to straight second person. I finally settled on a strange, conversational version that incorporated both.
How is this story like your other work? How is it different?
This story is unlike much of my other work because it reads just like the title suggests: like a litany or a prayer. The whole story is basically a conversation with God.
Questions about writing:
Who do you write for? Yourself or someone else?
For both reasons. But ultimately, it’s something that I am compelled to do.
What writing projects are you presently working on?
I’m preparing for the Borderlands Boot Camp in Baltimore this August.
What time of day do you prefer to do your writing?
Whenever I have a moment to sit down, I try to take advantage.
Favorite book read when you were a child?
That’s hard to narrow down. I’ll name a few that come to mind right off: James and the Giant Peach, The Secret Garden, Watership Down, The Chronicles of Narnia, etc.
Random Questions:
Watch much TV?
I don’t have cable. Otherwise, I’d be a basketball junkie.
Cat or dog person? (or something else, like birds, iguanas, or even evil robot monkeys?)
Dogs. Definitely dogs.
If you had a working time machine what advice would you give a younger self?
Start writing at twelve. Don’t wait until you are thirty.
Meet the creators of the stories, art, and non-fiction in our Spring 2006 issue.
The Dealer’s Hands—Paul Abbamondi is a speculative fiction writer who loves all genres but has a soft spot for stories involving elves and dragons. He reviews short fiction for Tangent Online, and hopes one day to compile a collection of his own work. He lives in New Jersey, and this is his first publication.
Review: Larry Niven’s The Draco Tavern—John Joseph Adams is the assistant editor at The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. He is a reviewer for Kirkus, Publishers Weekly, and Intergalactic Medicine Show. His other non-fiction has appeared in (or is forthcoming from): Amazing Stories, The Internet Review of Science Fiction, Locus, Novel & Short Story Writers Market, SCI FI Wire, Science Fiction Weekly, Strange Horizons, and Subterranean Magazine.
A Warrior’s Death —Aliette de Bodard studies in Paris to become an engineer in Data and Image Processing. French-born, she decided to write in English after a two-year stay in London. Her fantasies have an emphasis on Aztec, Chinese, and Indian cultures. Her short stories will appear in Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine, Fantastical Visions IV, and Deep Magic. Visit perso.wanadoo.fr/aliettedb or mail aliettedb@yahoo.com.
Rubber Boots, Mr. President—Bruce K. Derksen makes his living playing with locomotives and trains. After work, he becomes a novice carpenter making barn-wood furniture. A large family and a supportive wife round out a lively and diverse life. If he has an ounce of energy left, he bangs out a few words on his latest story. His fiction appears in Aoife’s Kiss, The Fifth Dimension, SDO Fantasy, The Sword Review, and other small press markets.
Paper Man—Darby Harn works to promote the arts in his hometown of Waterloo, Iowa. He graduated from the University of Iowa in 2001 and his fiction appears or is forthcoming in Fantasy Magazine, Shimmer, and the anthology Jigsaw Nation.
Dog Thinks Ahead—Clifford Royal Johns lives outside Chicago with his wife and a few dogs (none of whom are named Dog). His fiction has appeared in Flash Me, SDO Fantasy, and is on deck to appear in a future issue of FARthing. Other than writing, Cliff enjoys cabinet-making, tractors, volleyball, and playing blues harmonica. He is a member of the SemiO’s writing group.
Litany—John Mantooth lives in Birmingham, Alabama with his wife, two kids, and three dogs. Between drafts of his novel, The Day the Darkness Came, John writes short stories that fall between the cracks in the genre sidewalk. His work appears in Future’s Mysterious Anthology Magazine, Thirteen Stories, Feral Fiction, NFG and Stephen D. Rogers Presents. His nonfiction, Going to Dalton, won the Alabama School of Fine Arts Literary Contest.
The Little Match Girl—Angela Slatter has almost finished her Masters (Research) in Creative Writing at QUT in Brisbane, Australia. Her fiction has appeared in Antipodean SF and Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet. She ghost-writes finance articles to help pay the bills. The Little Matchgirl forms part of her Masters creative work, a collection of re-loaded fairy tales entitled Black-Winged Angels. This is the last known photograph of her, taken at age 6, as she plots her first, ill-fated, bid for world-domination.
Drevka’s Rain—Marina T. Stern is a nurse, gardener, needle artist, marine mammal enthusiast, and hostess of legendary proportions. She has two books of nonfiction fairy lore in print, To Live with the Fairy Folk and The Fairy Party Book. She lives on the outskirts of Los Angeles with her adorable husband and two dogs.
Nine stories, including two Year’s Best honorable mentions: the haunting “Litany,” by John Mantooth, and the devastating “The Little Match Girl,” by Angela Slatter.
This issue of Shimmer is full of the well-written slipstream and interstitial stories that show why the magazine has become a favorite with both the fans and the critics. — Tangent Online
Buy your copy today!
Table of Contents
A Warrior’s Death, by Aliette de Bodard
The room was in the most opulent part of the sacred precincts, away from prying eyes. Rich frescoes made it seem larger than it was, and a fountain whispered its endless song, giving a pleasant coolness to the air. But the room was no longer peaceful: its sanctity had been defiled by the murder of the War-God’s vessel.
The pale body lay on a makeshift altar of blood-spattered cushions, a gaping hole in its chest. It was a grotesque parody of the holiest sacrifice, and the vessel’s heart was nowhere to be seen.
Dog Thinks Ahead, by Clifford Royal Johns
You wouldn’t think a dog would be all that interested in something like boiled oatmeal with broccoli florets, and to be honest, I think his kibble smelled better. Still, I got no reason to complain because, based on what happened a while ago, I’d guess he has a plan.
I was living in an apartment with my girlfriend, Emma Sutledge . . . when I apparently began hiding her underwear under my pillow, although I didn’t remember doing that. She threw me out and said, “Take all your crap with you.”
Drevka’s Rain, by Marina T. Stern
Drevka pushed the shutters aside and inhaled deeply. Outside, rain fell on Terrebinth in fragrant silver curtains. She could barely make out Masha’s cottage down the lane; the house Andra and Aleki shared was lost in mist and illusion.
The Dealer’s Hands,by Paul Abbamondi
Greg and I found the Dealer right where we expected him, across Breaker’s Way. He was standing in the shadows of the rickety old barn, dressed all in brown: brimmed hat, swaying trench coat, gloves, muddied boots.
“Come on, Spence,” Greg said. “Let’s see what he has this week.”
Melancholix, by Joseph Remy
Litany, by John Mantooth
It was better in prison. Now that I’m free, I can’t go an hour, a minute without thinking of them. And the dog. The damned little dog.
Review: Larry Niven’s The Draco Tavern, by John Joseph Adams
Rubber Boots, Mr. President, by Bruce K. Derksen
He came off the main road one bright Sunday morning, his rhythmic strides swallowing up the length of the dirt trail that ran through our yard and up to our summer kitchen porch. His arms and legs pumped flawlessly in sequence like the big wheels of the steam engine that pulled into the landing of our town.
Paper Man, by Darby Harn
Very early on a Sunday morning, when the comet was at its closest, Millie stood at the kitchen sink washing her hands of the soft clay made of flour and water she’d been working with all night. She rarely felt the desire to see–with no memory older than her blindness, she never missed it–but descriptions of the comet weren’t enough. She wanted to see it for herself, the lacerated sky above as difficult to imagine as color.
The Little Match Girl, by Angela Slatter
The walls are a hard patchwork of rough stones. In some places, there’s the dark green of moss, birthed by moisture and the breath of fear. In others, there’s nothing but black. Soot from the torches is so thick on the stone that I could scratch my name onto it, if I knew how to write. The floor wears scattered straw for a coat, stinking and old. No natural light comes into this place; there’s not even a window, the opening bricked up long ago so no one might flee. And it stinks; the waste bucket sits festering in the corner.
I learned yesterday that we made the top 5 bestseller’s list at Clarkesworld Books for the week ending April 23. May this be only the first of many bestseller lists!
In other news, the Spring issue should be here on May 19th. We’ll be releasing the cover and table of contents and taking orders soon.
A week or so ago, Sarah (our newest slush monkey: hi, Sarah!) and I headed to Seattle for Norwescon. We had a really great time, but it took days for me to feel well-rested again! Hence the belated and brief trip report.
The highlight was hanging out with Ken Scholes, author of Action Team-Ups Number Thirty-Seven in the Winter 2006 issue, and our first Featured Author. He is a funny funny guy, and he reads well. I got to hear him read two stories: one about a golden Mayan yak, and one about monkeys. I am pretty fond of monkeys but even after you adjust for my biases, that’s a really good story.
I went to hear Jay Lake read, too. He’s the author of The Black Back-Lands, a cheery story about pumpkins from our Winter 2006 issue.
Perhaps my favorite reading was Ray Vukcevich’s upcoming Night Train story. If you haven’t read Ray yet, you should – he’s amazing.
Lots of other readings and panels and parties and new friends. I hung out with Bridget Coila and Miki Garrison a lot in the wee hours of the morning, helping Bridget get her story right and discussing superpowers. There was also a lot of chicken-related foolishness and dancing.
Introducing Shimmer‘s second Featured Author, Michael Livingston. Michael’s the author of Gnome Season, a delightful tale of multi-generational relationships and wholesale gnomic slaughter.
Want to hear his story?
We invited Michael to read it for us. Listen now! on mp3. (5.3 MB)
Born in Colorado, Michael Livingston holds degrees in History, Medieval Studies, and English. He has previously published articles on Tolkien and Joyce, discovered European maps of America that predate Columbus, and is working on his third academic book. He is a winner of the Writers of the Future contest and a proud member of Codex Writers. He serves as an Assistant Professor of English at The Citadel.
The Story
Here’s how the story begins (click the thumbnail to read the first page):
Gnome Season, by Michael LivingstonI bagged my first gnome when I was nineteen. A late bloomer, I suppose, since my grandfather always said that he shot his first when he was just ten.
“Teddie, Boy-o,” Gramps would drawl through his dentures, “you gotta be careful ’round them critter–gnome folk, I mean–bite and scratch you if you don’t get a drop on ’em.” And then he’d tell me how he saw his first gnome out on the farm when he was eight, learned to shoot when he was nine, got his first gun for his tenth birthday, and felled his first gnome two weeks later on a Boy Scout trip up in Missouri. Scouts were different in those days, I think.
My father, on the other hand, never claimed to have seen a gnome, much less bagged one. He always thought his dad’s talk of nefarious critters was nonsense, the rambling results of an uneducated mind cut off from civilized society. Like many men his age, my father left the farm as soon as he could and moved to the city to earn his education and respect. Neither of which accorded with hunting imaginary little people. He called it a “load of fly-addled horseshit,” claimed Gramps was just seeing things, a little crazy in the head from too long in the sun. I think this might explain why it took me so long to see one.
Want to read more? See our Purchase page for more information.
We’re now out of Winter 2006 print copies! Time for a celebratory beverage.
If you’re interested in purchasing a print copy, check with ClarkesWorld Books or Sam Weller’s Books – they might still have copies. You can find their contact information on our Where To Buy page. We’ll also continue to sell the electronic edition – so there’s no need to miss out.
Back from Norwescon now, and still awfully tired. I’ll try to say more about that this weekend. I really had a great time.
New content! I’ve posted a new audio file in our Reader’s Bonus section. Ken Scholes reads his story Action Team-Ups Number Thirty Seven, the first story in our Winter 2006 issue. If you’ve purchased a copy of the Winter 2006 issue, check it out! (And if you haven’t – why not? We still have a few print copies left, and the electronic edition is always available.)
The Winter Issue is at the printer’s now. We expect to be able to put copies in the mail the first week in May. We’ll be posting the table of contents and cover art shortly – stay tuned!
Norwescon Beth is going to be at Norwescon this weekend (April 13-16). If you’re there, please introduce yourself!
Submissions Thanks to everyone who has submitted their work to us recently – reading the stories sent to us is my favorite part of this gig.
We are chock full of fairy tale retellings right now – the odds of us accepting any more are not very good. Your fairy tale retellings will probably be more successful if you send them to us this fall, when we are not so glutted.
On the subject of retellings, we are most interested the retellings that bring new twists to familiar tales. Don’t just bring the original to life – change it. Warp it in your own way. Do something special with it.
To celebrate spring we’d like to offer you this special bonus; a story so exciting that we couldn’t wait for the next issue of the magazine to come out. We had to share it with you now. Download the pdf today!
John Mantooth’s story, Litany, appears in the Spring 2006 issue of Shimmer. Send him e-mail!
